1444-1508: Loans, Loans, Corruption, and More Loans
Everyone knows the Great Horde, right? Those dudes to the northeast of the Ottomans who usually get crushed by them, Russia, and/or neighboring tribes. Well, not in our case! (hopefully)
Imgur Albums
Ride forth, my warriors, and we shall show the world to fear our power and respect our rule — lest they face dire consequences for opposing our Great Horde.
V1.24 Japan, Normal, all expansions on. I've never played a horde before, so we might as well go for all of the horde achievements!
Achievements, aka Gettin' Paid
:
Pyramid of Skulls and Turning the Tide should be easy. Gold Rush puts us on a time crunch early on.
The Great Khan, I'll Graze my Horse, and Dar al-Islam will all require a huge empire with lots of resources. So, it should be a long but fun game.
We open with vassalizing Ryazan and taking up willing tributary states to gain mostly free resources. Crimea allies Nogai and Kazan, and we take Crimea before the Ottomans get cozy with them. We ally Ajam and the powerful Ottomans. Finally, we start crippling Muscovy before they start getting insanely powerful, pulled into the war when we vassalize Ryazan. With limited resources and tactical blunders galore, we take loans and debase currency to fund our expansion.
(I try restarting a few times, but each time Crimea immediately allies the Ottomans, so we're back on the same debt-ridden run)
The Russians fight hard, but our mighty horde gains the upper hand.
Quite the debt. Interest 50% of income.
We take all their provinces that we (or a subject) need to reform into the Golden Horde in one fell swoop. Though we could feed Ryazan, we don't want them getting too strong early on. And I sort of misunderstood the coring range mechanics, not fully realizing that:
1. You don't need claims as a horde.
2. You can core provinces neighboring your vassals. The fact that you can't do this in vanilla screwed my Ottoman WC at 99%... (I'm still a little iffy on coring range. I would take provinces in that WC that somehow weren't in my coring range so I sat on OE until I could declare again. Sooo excuse me if I'm a bit hesitant to give Ryazan provinces that may block my expansion)
Over 80k casualties on both sides.
Our new diplo map, with our ever-growing tributary states.
We head into Kazan, Uzbek, and OH GOD OUR INTEREST IS EATING ALMOST OUR WHOLE INCOME.
Our neighbors are pretty poor so there's not many ducats to loot. We're razing every province we get.
We reform into the Golden Horde, granting us Empire status and some other goodies. I decide to take the new ideas over generic horde ones — While generic horde ideas are more militaristic, Golden Horde ideas are geared more towards creating a lasting state. This is something we might need, and the -10% maintenance bonus immediately helps our sad, sad economy.
Nogai is allied with Genoa, so we take the opportunity to take more of the Crimea region. Our corruption is now a whopping 24! At least it decreases unrest.
We really need to take and develop that gold mine in eastern Muscovy (formerly Kazan) to stand any sort of chance of escaping our debt spiral. Novgorod is our tributary, so it looks like they'll be alive for a while this game.
Our war lasts quite a while, as we work to mostly just outlast Muscovy. We trek back and forth from killing our rebels (and from neighboring states), attacking Muscovy, and defending against them. We play hot potato with their capital.
After uhhhh at least 5-6 years we finally win and take most of the gains we wanted.
We don't want much more development at the moment, so we release and feed Perm.
Our new spheres of influence. Ottomans got hostile so we picked up Chagatai and AQ. Oirat and Chagatai are both Ming tributaries so our eastern expansion is blocked. Transoxiana has powerful allies Ajam and Delhi, Caucasia has our tributaries, and Lithuania is under Polands PU.
Ryazan is a bit disloyal and their income is negligible so we turn them to a march. Muscovy can't handle their rebels so we gain one or two extra provinces for Perm.
Kazakh breaks from Uzbek and we take them as a tributary. Our second unintentional achievement!
Most tributaries are donating manpower, with some of the larger ones like Novgorod donating money.
Perm is turned to a march, but we mistakenly make the choice to enforce religion on them, boosting their Liberty Desire sky-high for decades to come.
We take humanist for our first ideas. Religious Unity will slow corruption's growth, among other good Humanist Ideas.
We've cancelled a few tributary states to make room for expansion. After annexing Shirvan, we ally QQ. Promising them land, we march into Ajam and their ally Transoxiana.
Teetering in and out of the edge of bankruptcy for years, we slightly alleviate the problem with money from our enemies. Transoxiana gives us a vassal to release for recoring, and Ajam extends our reach into Caucasia and Persia. Even QQ gets a province, only decreasing their trust by 7. Hopefully we can do this again sometime, bud.
Imgur Albums
Ride forth, my warriors, and we shall show the world to fear our power and respect our rule — lest they face dire consequences for opposing our Great Horde.
V1.24 Japan, Normal, all expansions on. I've never played a horde before, so we might as well go for all of the horde achievements!
Achievements, aka Gettin' Paid
:Gold Rush
Reform the Golden Horde before 1500. (done)
The Great Khan
As the Mongol Khanate or the Great Horde, own or have a subject own the Chinese, Russian and Persian regions.
Pyramid of Skulls
As a Steppe Horde, raze a province with at least 30 development.
Turning the Tide
Start as a Steppe Horde in 1444 and embrace all institutions.
I'll graze my horse here.. And here...
As a Horde, own over 200 provinces producing grain. (livestock also works)
Since I finally caved and bought the Star and Crescent DLC because I like Muslim nations,
Dar al-Islam
Unify Islam under your rule.
Reform the Golden Horde before 1500. (done)
The Great Khan
As the Mongol Khanate or the Great Horde, own or have a subject own the Chinese, Russian and Persian regions.
Pyramid of Skulls
As a Steppe Horde, raze a province with at least 30 development.
Turning the Tide
Start as a Steppe Horde in 1444 and embrace all institutions.
I'll graze my horse here.. And here...
As a Horde, own over 200 provinces producing grain. (livestock also works)
Since I finally caved and bought the Star and Crescent DLC because I like Muslim nations,
Dar al-Islam
Unify Islam under your rule.
Pyramid of Skulls and Turning the Tide should be easy. Gold Rush puts us on a time crunch early on.
The Great Khan, I'll Graze my Horse, and Dar al-Islam will all require a huge empire with lots of resources. So, it should be a long but fun game.
Horde mechanics — Very interesting and different than monarchies. Powerful bonuses like +20% manpower and FL, faster troops, -10% AE, and an insane -50% troop reinforcement cost. Steppe Nomad government is not without drawbacks however, with -15% institution spread and starting without feudalism. Razing is an interesting mechanic that, along with Horde Unity, rewards constant expansion.
The Tribes, our lone estate, are also bittersweet — They are powerful allies with +15-20% manpower recovery, possibly -20% cavalry cost, and 5 free cavalry every few decades. However, Tribes lower local autonomy to 50% and demand 25% of your land, with the percentage only growing as our development increases. While manpower is plentiful, money may end up being a real problem. And if they're disloyal, uh... we're screwed. -40% manpower recovery, horde unity malus, and razing province malus.
The Tribes, our lone estate, are also bittersweet — They are powerful allies with +15-20% manpower recovery, possibly -20% cavalry cost, and 5 free cavalry every few decades. However, Tribes lower local autonomy to 50% and demand 25% of your land, with the percentage only growing as our development increases. While manpower is plentiful, money may end up being a real problem. And if they're disloyal, uh... we're screwed.
-40% manpower recovery, horde unity malus, and razing province malus.
We open with vassalizing Ryazan and taking up willing tributary states to gain mostly free resources. Crimea allies Nogai and Kazan, and we take Crimea before the Ottomans get cozy with them. We ally Ajam and the powerful Ottomans. Finally, we start crippling Muscovy before they start getting insanely powerful, pulled into the war when we vassalize Ryazan. With limited resources and tactical blunders galore, we take loans and debase currency to fund our expansion.
(I try restarting a few times, but each time Crimea immediately allies the Ottomans, so we're back on the same debt-ridden run)
The Russians fight hard, but our mighty horde gains the upper hand.
Quite the debt.
Interest 50% of income.
We take all their provinces that we (or a subject) need to reform into the Golden Horde in one fell swoop. Though we could feed Ryazan, we don't want them getting too strong early on. And I sort of misunderstood the coring range mechanics, not fully realizing that:
1. You don't need claims as a horde.
2. You can core provinces neighboring your vassals. The fact that you can't do this in vanilla screwed my Ottoman WC at 99%... (I'm still a little iffy on coring range. I would take provinces in that WC that somehow weren't in my coring range so I sat on OE until I could declare again. Sooo excuse me if I'm a bit hesitant to give Ryazan provinces that may block my expansion)
Over 80k casualties on both sides.
Our new diplo map, with our ever-growing tributary states.
We head into Kazan, Uzbek, and OH GOD OUR INTEREST IS EATING ALMOST OUR WHOLE INCOME.
Our neighbors are pretty poor so there's not many ducats to loot. We're razing every province we get.
We reform into the Golden Horde, granting us Empire status and some other goodies. I decide to take the new ideas over generic horde ones — While generic horde ideas are more militaristic, Golden Horde ideas are geared more towards creating a lasting state. This is something we might need, and the -10% maintenance bonus immediately helps our sad, sad economy.
Nogai is allied with Genoa, so we take the opportunity to take more of the Crimea region. Our corruption is now a whopping 24! At least it decreases unrest.
We really need to take and develop that gold mine in eastern Muscovy (formerly Kazan) to stand any sort of chance of escaping our debt spiral. Novgorod is our tributary, so it looks like they'll be alive for a while this game.
Our war lasts quite a while, as we work to mostly just outlast Muscovy. We trek back and forth from killing our rebels (and from neighboring states), attacking Muscovy, and defending against them. We play hot potato with their capital.
After uhhhh at least 5-6 years we finally win and take most of the gains we wanted.
We don't want much more development at the moment, so we release and feed Perm.
Our new spheres of influence. Ottomans got hostile so we picked up Chagatai and AQ. Oirat and Chagatai are both Ming tributaries so our eastern expansion is blocked. Transoxiana has powerful allies Ajam and Delhi, Caucasia has our tributaries, and Lithuania is under Polands PU.
Ryazan is a bit disloyal and their income is negligible so we turn them to a march. Muscovy can't handle their rebels so we gain one or two extra provinces for Perm.
Kazakh breaks from Uzbek and we take them as a tributary. Our second unintentional achievement!
Most tributaries are donating manpower, with some of the larger ones like Novgorod donating money.
Perm is turned to a march, but we mistakenly make the choice to enforce religion on them, boosting their Liberty Desire sky-high for decades to come.
We take humanist for our first ideas. Religious Unity will slow corruption's growth, among other good Humanist Ideas.
We've cancelled a few tributary states to make room for expansion. After annexing Shirvan, we ally QQ. Promising them land, we march into Ajam and their ally Transoxiana.
Teetering in and out of the edge of bankruptcy for years, we slightly alleviate the problem with money from our enemies. Transoxiana gives us a vassal to release for recoring, and Ajam extends our reach into Caucasia and Persia. Even QQ gets a province, only decreasing their trust by 7. Hopefully we can do this again sometime, bud.
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